Sorry, Alphabet: Apple Is Most Valuable Company In The World Again

Alphabet, which just recently became the most valuable company in the world, was almost immediately dethroned by Apple. However, Alphabet's brief claim to the title might not be the last time that the top spot exchanges between the two companies.
( Andrew Burton | Getty Images )

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Alphabet recently became the most valuable company in the world, surpassing Apple to make the claim.

The move happened after the release of Alphabet's earnings for the fourth quarter of 2015. Stock prices for the company surged to over $800 for an 8 percent increase on the back of Alphabet's strong earnings report, causing the market capitalization of the company to rise to more than $540 billion.

However, Alphabet's hold on the top spot was short-lived, as Apple has reclaimed the title of the world's most valuable company.

Upon the close of trading on Feb. 3, Alphabet shares held a price of $726.95 each, which is a decrease of 4.93 percent compared to the previous day. This decreased the market capitalization of Alphabet to $499.94 billion, allowing Apple, with a 1.98 percent increase in the price of its shares to close at $96.35, to once again claim the top spot with market capitalization of $534.22 billion.

The drop of the prices of Alphabet's shares is partly due to an overall down day for the tech industry, as Amazon, Netflix, Tesla and Yahoo all saw share prices close at lower levels compared to the previous day.

Apple has held the position as the most valuable company in the world since 2011, when it overtook Exonn Mobile. The last time that Alphabet, then known as Google, was more valuable than Apple was in 2010, when the two companies carried market capitalization values of less than $200 billion. At the time, Apple had not yet unveiled the iPad and the latest iPhone model was the iPhone 3GS.

Alphabet's brief claim to the throne might not be the last time that the title exchanges hands between the two companies, but with investors settling down after the release of the earnings reports for the previous quarter, it could be a while before Alphabet once again gets the chance to overtake Apple.

An upcoming March event by Apple, where it is expected to unveil the iPhone 5se, the iPad Air 3 and new Apple Watch models, could also be a turning point on whether it can keep the top spot as investors could react positively or negatively to the new products.

Following Apple and Alphabet in the list of the world's most valuable companies are Microsoft, Facebook and Exxon Mobil, in that order.

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